Stormy Daniels Offers to Refund Hush Money to Trump

Her legal team has put forward a couple of different arguments, but now Stormy herself is making an offer:

She'll give back the $130,000 in hush money.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sent a letter on Monday to Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

If you'll recall, Michael Cohen is the private attorney for Trump who claims that he basically just woke up one morning and decided to wire $130,000 to Daniels without any reimbursement from Trump.

In it, Daniels offers to refund that amount in exchange for the NDA being lifted, which would allow her to speak about their affair and also publish photos, text messages, or even videos from that time.

Interestingly, the letter (obtained by the New York Times) offers to send the money to Trump, and specifically to any account of his choosing, rather than to Cohen.

Also, the letter includes a deadline by which Cohen (and, realistically, Trump) must decide whether to accept the offer: Noon on Tuesday.

Realistically, it seems unlikely that Cohen or Trump will accept the offer.

In fact ... one has to wonder if Stormy or her legal team ever imagined that they would. $130,000 is a lot of money, but even though Trump goes to great lengths to inflate his wealth without divulging how much or little he actually owns, he can go without.

And obviously Cohen, if he's willing to potentially violate election law by paying Stormy this hush money just weeks before the 2016 election, isn't going to agree without the go-ahead from Trump.

In part, perhaps she -- despite having conservative political views -- is as horrified as most Americans by Trump's tenure in the White House.

But it's very likely that she's eager to seize the opportunity to go on every talk show to tell her story, and every financial benefit that goes with it.

At present, however, violating the NDA would result in a $1 million penalty.

This letter -- which was always bound to be leaked -- seems like a way of shopping how much she has to expose to the world.

Of course, depending upon a court ruling, that NDA may not be enforceable for one simple reason:

Donald Trump never signed it.

It's widely believed that he may have avoided signing it so that he could have deniability of the whole thing -- which would sound implausible, but so do plenty of his assertions.

But Stormy's lawsuit alleges that the NDA is null and void because both parties didn't sign.

This new offer, to refund the money, requires the signatures of all parties -- Trump included.

Interestingly, the news that Trump may have had multiple extramarital affairs doesn't seem to trouble his evangelical base.

Some say that they're just bigots spiting Obama and progressives. Others say that they're just willing to put up with anything in the hope that Trump will restrict abortion rights.

Part of the reason that progressives care about the Stormy Daniels story is quite simple: schadenfreude. Since Trump is making every waking moment a hellish nightmare for people, they can squeeze some joy out of anything perceived to make him unhappy.

The other reason, however, is that violating election laws -- in this case, campaign finance laws -- is actually serious business.

But so are a lot of crimes that Trump is believed to have committed. Let's be realistic -- even if he ends up being carted off to prison, Trump will probably get by unscathed with most of what he's done.

But schadenfreude is still a great reason to enjoy this story as it continues to develop and evolve.